OpenSUSE or Arch?

[Feliks]

I'm doing a triple boot for my new computer build (Mac OSX, Windows, Linux). Windows will be the main OS I will use however I plan to use Mac OSX pretty often too--Linux will just be there because, well... why not?

To me what matters in a distribution honestly varies. Currently I'm going for what looks cool--and in that sense, ElementaryOS wins, hands-down. However I want something slightly more than that. I've been a fan of OpenSUSE for a long time now but I heard Arch is like building your own Linux from the ground-up. One of the reasons I am a fan of OpenSUSE is because I liked that about SUSEStudio.

So my question: what are the pros/cons of ArchLinux vs OpenSUSE? Which do you think I should go with? And which looks aesthetically better? For ArchLinux I'm aware there's several different desktop environments supported-- and I plan to install it using Architect so please don't factor in here "OpenSUSE is easier to install." Architech makes ArchLinux fairly simple to install and I am not brand new to Linux (however it has been a while). If I don't use Architech I'll probably do it from scratch.

Things I plan to do on my computer:
*Game (though this will be done mostly on Windows!)
*School *Netflix *Play around! Youtube, etc.

My PC Build: https://pcpartpicker.com/user/Feliks/saved/#view=fvKV3C

Pros/Cons would be greatly appreciated, along with your personal recommendation. I'm up for your opinions, especially from those who have used either/both!


(Also, which desktop environment do you all prefer, particularly in terms of aesthetics? This is one thing I really like from ElementaryOS--the Pantheon environment but unfortunately it isn't really a choice on other distros)

 

[skittle]

Might as well ask what is the best beer. Only you can decide what is best for you.

BTW if you want to check out what is popular with Linux/BSD asthetics checkout:

https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/top/

 

[itmoba]

Favorite beer? Obviously that'd be the "Supplication" by Russian River. Hot damn... every time I go to northern California, it's one of the first things on my list! Damn, now I want some *cries*.

That aside, what do you mean by aesthetically pleasing? Do you mean eye-candy? Maybe I'm the exception, but I find the terminal to be much more aesthetically pleasing than KDE4 or GNOME Shell. To be honest, you can install just about any window-manager on just about any Linux flavor. You can easily install GNOME Shell, KDE4, i3-wm (my favorite), MATE, Cinnamon, Enlightenment, or any other window-manager provided you have a little bit of knowledge or persistence to get the job done.

 

[Feliks]

Favorite beer? Obviously that'd be the "Supplication" by Russian River. Hot damn... every time I go to northern California, it's one of the first things on my list! Damn, now I want some *cries*.

That aside, what do you mean by aesthetically pleasing? Do you mean eye-candy? Maybe I'm the exception, but I find the terminal to be much more aesthetically pleasing than KDE4 or GNOME Shell. To be honest, you can install just about any window-manager on just about any Linux flavor. You can easily install GNOME Shell, KDE4, i3-wm (my favorite), MATE, Cinnamon, Enlightenment, or any other window-manager provided you have a little bit of knowledge or persistence to get the job done.

How about a lesser-common desktop environment: Pantheon? I see it on the Arch page and on OpenSUSE but I'm not sure how to tell if either is stable enough to use.

 

[itmoba]

The idea behind Linux is that it's easy to retarget thanks to open-source initiatives, so seldom do many packages only work with one distribution. When something is released -- even if it only supports one particular Linux flavor at the initial moment -- it typically doesn't take very long for someone or a group of people to port it to another distribution, though it may take time for everything to work.

In the case of Pantheon, Arch doesn't fully support all of the features (e.g., transparency). Pantheon does work with OpenSUSE, but it too needs to be custom configured a bit to get it up and running. Pantheon is built atop GTK and prefers the use of Vala, so unless you absolutely must use it, I don't see any reason why you couldn't just use GNOME Shell. The question, thus, is "why would you focus on a lesser-known window manager when there are many others out there that are very similar?"

True, I use a not very well known window manager i3-wm, but the reason I do so is because I like how some of its features improve upon Xmonad and dwm. In the case of the latter, the only way to configure it is by recompiling it with the changes you want, and as much as I like that it stupid-proofs itself by warding off many people, I dislike the hassle when I'm in the mood for changing the shape, size, and color of whatever.

 

[Feliks]

Thank you. So what you're saying is it would be easier just to arrange Gnome to look like Pantheon? It wasn't particularly for the programs but rather the Mac-esque look that I fancied And just the general atmosphere of Elementary in general, I dig.

So forgetting the default (when you install it) aesthetics, which distro do you suggest I go with for the needs I stated up there^? (Not limited to Arch or OpenSUSE though I do like those two) this can be based on opinion and sorry if it's a redundant question; I just can't seem to find good suggestions other than Ubuntu or Linux Mint, neither of which I want to go with.

 

[itmoba]

Well, both Ubuntu and Mint are known as "Debian-based" or "Debian-derived" distributions -- this is true, in fact, with a large number of the most popular Linux flavors. Personally, I use a milieu of distributions. I have two primary distributions which I use: LFS and Ubuntu. Which I use, however, depends on the task and mood at the moment. When I'm lazy, I use Ubuntu. For all other purposes I use LFS or Slackware (my secondary option).

I wouldn't recommend LFS for someone new to Linux. True, Arch is sometimes equated with an LFS, but I personally wouldn't classify it as such. Ultimately, what it boils down to is what you're looking for. If you want to be a terminal user like me, the best thing you can do is get a shell account first. This will literally force you to learn the commands and how to script. You, however, are looking for a Mac-esque look, so you ought to invest in OpenSUSE -- I've used it before, and I thought it was pretty good, but the last time I used it was in 2008 or 2009 (I think).

 

[Spac3nerd]

I'm doing a triple boot for my new computer build (Mac OSX, Windows, Linux). Windows will be the main OS I will use however I plan to use Mac OSX pretty often too--Linux will just be there because, well... why not?

To me what matters in a distribution honestly varies. Currently I'm going for what looks cool--and in that sense, ElementaryOS wins, hands-down. However I want something slightly more than that. I've been a fan of OpenSUSE for a long time now but I heard Arch is like building your own Linux from the ground-up. One of the reasons I am a fan of OpenSUSE is because I liked that about SUSEStudio.

So my question: what are the pros/cons of ArchLinux vs OpenSUSE? Which do you think I should go with? And which looks aesthetically better? For ArchLinux I'm aware there's several different desktop environments supported-- and I plan to install it using Architect so please don't factor in here "OpenSUSE is easier to install." Architech makes ArchLinux fairly simple to install and I am not brand new to Linux (however it has been a while). If I don't use Architech I'll probably do it from scratch.

Things I plan to do on my computer:
*Game (though this will be done mostly on Windows!)
*School *Netflix *Play around! Youtube, etc.

My PC Build: https://pcpartpicker.com/user/Feliks/saved/#view=fvKV3C

Pros/Cons would be greatly appreciated, along with your personal recommendation. I'm up for your opinions, especially from those who have used either/both!


(Also, which desktop environment do you all prefer, particularly in terms of aesthetics? This is one thing I really like from ElementaryOS--the Pantheon environment but unfortunately it isn't really a choice on other distros)

If you want a system in which to play around and learn things, Arch would be slightly better in that regard. However, I would say that openSUSE works better out of the box, and they have what is perhaps the best implementation of KDE around.
Personally, I would just use a distro that works well of of the box and which has very good community support(we're talking Ubuntu derivatives, RHEL derivatives). The less time you have to spend fixing trivial issues, the more time you have to do real work.
Minimal distros are ok for the learning experience and nothing more. The OS is there to help you do useful work, and useful work done in an OS is generally on a much higher level than the things you do by dicking around the shell all day.

If you want a stable distro that also provides good customization and has the latest and greatest, go for Fedora. For long term use, go for Ubuntu LTS or Centos/Scientific/RHEL.

 

[out-of-order]

It is interesting that you name openSUSE and Arch Linux as the candidates. That is a really interesting combination! At home I am an Ubuntu user as this is easy to set up and I can still do all my programming (Python, C++) and other stuff (e.g. LaTeX) on it. Since Canonical partnered with some other companies, I get MP3 support without any hazzle. I like that.

The last six months I worked with openSUSE 13.1. I know that this is not the current version and that their new targeting with Leap and Tumbleweed might change things. I developed C++ applications there. And of course it is a Linux distribution which has the basics available. However, I do not like a few things about it:

• 
  ■ The number of packages feels limited compared to Ubuntu and Fedora. On Ubuntu, I mostly have the packages that I like. On Fedora, only two software packages are missing that I like to use (biber and mediathekview).
  ■ YaST is a nice if you just want to get started quickly. Actually, openSUSE is the distribution where unattended upgrades are easiest to set up. Just go into YaST and enable them. On Ubuntu you have to install a package and edit a configuration. On Fedora you also have to install a package and change one line in the configuration. The thing that I do not like is that YaST will generate hundreds of lines of Bash code for you and put them somewhere. Nowadays I use centralized configuration management (Ansible) and there Fedora and Ubuntu are easy to configure. openSUSE on the other hand is really hard since I cannot automate GUI menus.
  ■ openSUSE has some customizations in like KDE (custom theme) that I find too much. A distribution should leave packages rather vanilla. Well, Ubuntu does change a lot itself, I know. At least the KDE packages are not touched that much.

I've spent 15 hours with a friend to install Arch Linux. This is a very nice playground if you have time to learn about the Linux and built it up. Since I need my machine every day and I can work with Ubuntu, I just use that. To me learning about Physics and HPC programming is more important than having understood every part of the Linux stack that I work on. Also I like to have major changes only every 6 months, that is a nice balance for me.

Since you say you have a triple-boot and “school” suggests you have some time on your hands, I'd suggest to use Arch Linux and see how far you get. In case you like Linux, but Arch Linux is too much to configure, you could try Fedora, which is also a rather vanilla Linux.

The graphical session I currently use is just Awesome WM. It is a tiling window manager and I can control it with my keyboard. As a second choice I use KDE as I like its configurability. Either way I use the KDE programs because I like them the most. But with Linux you can just install multiple desktop environments and window managers in parallel.

Your PC build seems nice, I have almost built myself something in that price range. Except that I have an AMD FX-8320 CPU and the R9 380. The interesting thing is that I spend like 800 EUR on it. That is rather strange.

 

[Feliks]

It is interesting that you name openSUSE and Arch Linux as the candidates. That is a really interesting combination! At home I am an Ubuntu user as this is easy to set up and I can still do all my programming (Python, C++) and other stuff (e.g. LaTeX) on it. Since Canonical partnered with some other companies, I get MP3 support without any hazzle. I like that.

The last six months I worked with openSUSE 13.1. I know that this is not the current version and that their new targeting with Leap and Tumbleweed might change things. I developed C++ applications there. And of course it is a Linux distribution which has the basics available. However, I do not like a few things about it:

• 
  ■ The number of packages feels limited compared to Ubuntu and Fedora. On Ubuntu, I mostly have the packages that I like. On Fedora, only two software packages are missing that I like to use (biber and mediathekview).
  ■ YaST is a nice if you just want to get started quickly. Actually, openSUSE is the distribution where unattended upgrades are easiest to set up. Just go into YaST and enable them. On Ubuntu you have to install a package and edit a configuration. On Fedora you also have to install a package and change one line in the configuration. The thing that I do not like is that YaST will generate hundreds of lines of Bash code for you and put them somewhere. Nowadays I use centralized configuration management (Ansible) and there Fedora and Ubuntu are easy to configure. openSUSE on the other hand is really hard since I cannot automate GUI menus.
  ■ openSUSE has some customizations in like KDE (custom theme) that I find too much. A distribution should leave packages rather vanilla. Well, Ubuntu does change a lot itself, I know. At least the KDE packages are not touched that much.

I've spent 15 hours with a friend to install Arch Linux. This is a very nice playground if you have time to learn about the Linux and built it up. Since I need my machine every day and I can work with Ubuntu, I just use that. To me learning about Physics and HPC programming is more important than having understood every part of the Linux stack that I work on. Also I like to have major changes only every 6 months, that is a nice balance for me.

Since you say you have a triple-boot and “school” suggests you have some time on your hands, I'd suggest to use Arch Linux and see how far you get. In case you like Linux, but Arch Linux is too much to configure, you could try Fedora, which is also a rather vanilla Linux.

The graphical session I currently use is just Awesome WM. It is a tiling window manager and I can control it with my keyboard. As a second choice I use KDE as I like its configurability. Either way I use the KDE programs because I like them the most. But with Linux you can just install multiple desktop environments and window managers in parallel.

Your PC build seems nice, I have almost built myself something in that price range. Except that I have an AMD FX-8320 CPU and the R9 380. The interesting thing is that I spend like 800 EUR on it. That is rather strange.

Actually the time on my hands is very limited; I'm in more classes than almost any one I know and college is stressful ;P However I will be going Arch, I believe.

And well, I budgeted very carefully for the build and 800EUR sounds about right especially considering that PC parts are more expensive in most other countries that I know of. Actually I'm kind of surprised you managed to get it in 800. Mine costed about $800 because I ended up adding an SSD, a CPU cooler, and a case fan It was below $700 before that

 

[skittle]

I have recently switched from arch to fedora because of all the bugs with r/rstudio :/